


Withered Heart

by Artemis_Dreamer



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Bitter Tears, FrostIron - Freeform, Golden Orb, M/M, Marriage, Misguided Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-12
Updated: 2013-07-12
Packaged: 2017-12-19 05:25:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/879943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Dreamer/pseuds/Artemis_Dreamer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which a lover traps his beloved in a state of nothingness, all in an effort to protect him from harm. These efforts are in vain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Withered Heart

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: Contains angst and implied death of a main character.
> 
> Read at your own risk.

Simple jinxes, simple spells and simple curses. All to keep Anthony as his very own.

You couldn’t just do that, trap a person, bind them to you by shutting out every last person who envied them or lusted for them, or even cared too fondly about them.

You couldn’t just do that… but Loki did.

You didn’t go and do that, and then go even further; shutting out the world so completely that it may as well have never existed. But Loki did.

For Anthony.

The mighty Iron Man, living a trapped life, but one that he did not reject. He was with Loki, and that was what mattered.

A golden orb, within which the trickster and his lover floated – the prison that kept the rest of the world out. They were not in Manhattan. Those who walked the halls of Stark Tower in their guises were merely tricks of Loki’s magic. They were in the one place where the god knew that his beloved would be safe forever – within magic.

All told, Anthony did not know of the magic, did not realize what had been done. He hung in a state between consciousness and death, feeling only the presence of the one that he cared about. That and the love, the boundless love.

It was not clear where his love ended and Loki’s began. Then again, it had never been clear.

Safe. Safe, yes, but trapped. Loki knew that it was wrong, but there was no other way. So long as the billionaire moved and thought and interacted with the brutal realities of the world, he was not safe.

After all, immortality granted merely freedom from age, not from a violent and brutal death.

Here, he would be safe forever. Unmoving, unspeaking, with only one pure thought; his love for Loki. Magic would sustain his life indefinitely, just as it had for nearly nine months.

There was no pain here, and rightly, there was no pleasure. Did one miss the other’s soft touch? Did the other miss the one’s ministrations? Did either miss the favors, the sexual encounters, the laughter and the conflicts?

No. Loki told himself that he didn’t. He couldn’t. This was what was safe and right, and this was how things would remain. Indefinitely. Eternally?

Yes.

Anthony could not think, but what if that were not so? That was the root of the dread that ate at the heart of the magic, the worst fear of the trickster. He could return thought, and with that, pleasure. He could do so with a gesture, a word.

But he did not, would not. Would never.

It was the great unknown that scared him, the what-if. What if Anthony’s first conscious thought was not of him? Of scotch, or the Avengers, or – horror of horrors – of Pepper?

There would be no thought. There would be no pleasure. That was all acceptable, so long as there was no pain.

\---

A game had been made, a sick, lonely game. Loki would sit and stare down at those walking shadows that he had birthed, and think. Think when his twinned spirit could not.

Sitting, watching all the while. The shadows, as they kissed and fought, remembered and forgot. They laughed and cried, and never tried. Never tried to force their feelings, their actions.

How could it work? It couldn’t have, shouldn’t have.

It did.

The orb was one of safety, safety and love. So why was there the sound of weeping? Why did remorseful tears fall from the face of the one who had sworn that his world was at last complete within this orb?

Yes, there was love. But love without life is meaningless. One must live in order to appreciate love. The god knew now – had always known?

The orb wavered for a moment. A flicker of thought escaped, illegal thought from the one who must not think. Yet, it was only a name. His name.

“Loki.”

Yet, no-one was there to perceive this thought. Anthony was alone within the orb, trapped forever in safety and complacency. For Loki had left, stepped back into reality, taking the place of his shadow effigy.

He was now living opposite a pale image of the one he loved, living as he should have been all along.

Anthony would never be freed. That misguided desire for protection, eternal perfection, that Loki had held in his withered heart; that would hold fast until the end of time.

A lover’s prison, though was it truly a prison if there was no resistance?

Eternal love, trapped in magic that had long been forgotten.

\---

Loki lived and loved in Manhattan, and the shadow image of his beloved meant more than his beloved ever had. There was no need to protect one who could not die. There was no protection, only freedom – of thought, of movement, of love.

Flawless. Chocolate-brown hair and piercing dark eyes that crinkled at the corners with laughter.

Shiny things, like diamond rings. The ring upon his finger.

Marriage.

The pure thought was gone. That true love was gone. Complex spells shattered, to the chime of wedding bells. Loki no longer loved Anthony. He loved the image that he had created of Anthony.

Forgotten in a golden tomb, the one who must not think became the one who could not breathe. 

Death. Unnoticed death.

Arm in arm along the river, a dog and master strode. A tower crumbled, and the director wept.

...but Loki was happy, and that was all that had ever mattered.

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> Um, hi.
> 
> I know this is very different from my usual style, but this is what three weeks of therapy have brought to the surface.  
> I'm sorry if it was terrible; this is really my first time writing angst-type fiction.
> 
> Please feel free to tell me what you thought.


End file.
